Jelly Bean Checks Youâre Actually Alive Before Unlocking Your Phone [Android]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5922799/jelly-bean-checks-youre-actually-alive-before-unlocking-your-phone

Google's clever little Face Unlock security feature, which lets you use your phone's camera to pull your Android mobile out of standby mode by having it recognise its master, has been updated, with the Jelly Bean version of the tool allowing users to blink at it to prove they're not a photograph.

This is designed to stop the sort of internet outrage pieces we saw surrounding the launch of Google's Android 4.0 software alongside the Galaxy Nexus last year, when it was discovered that Android's new Face Unlock could be tricked by using a photo of the registered owner, so was about as secure as writing your secrets on a pub toilet wall in marker pen.

So in Android 4.1 it ought to be a little tougher to fool thanks to the optional blink detection setting, unless you print out a life-sized photo of the owner, cut out holes for the eyes and blink through the holes. Which is probably a bit too much fuss for the chance to read someone else's mundane SMS messages. [XDA via TechCrunch via Gizmodo UK]

Image by Android Central

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